Madness In Great Ones
by Nawyn
Summary: Hamlet" was based on real events in Danish history. This is the story that inspired one of the greatest plays of all time.
1. Death of a King

Chapter One

Herning coughed behind his hand. He had woken that morning with a splitting headache, and all he wanted at that moment was to go home where his wife, Margret, could fuss over him and cushion the pounding in his skull with hot compresses and sweet words. He was not very excited about spending the day dancing attendance on the king's brother, high and powerful though Prince Feng might be. Herning was a man who liked his comforts when he could get them. As lord of the city of Struer in the land of Denmark, ruled by his sovereign majesty King Horwethil, he had a right to them.

He rubbed his head and squinted at Feng. King Horwethil was a handsome man in the prime of his middle years, who walked with power in even the swing of his arms. _A pity that his brother's not so handsome,_ thought Herning, surveying the short Feng. The prince's vulpine eyes raked the land from where he stood on the battlements, roving, prowling in a way that made the hair on the back of Herning's neck stand up. Herning did not like Feng, and neither did Margret. "A snake," she'd once called the king's brother when safely out of earshot, "coiled around the king's heart." The description came to Herning's mind now, and he shivered in the cold air.

Feng turned to look at him, his face pinched by the cold of mid-December. "Lord Herning," he called, "come here." Herning obeyed, forcing his frozen feet to carry him next to his prince. "Look down there," Feng ordered, pointing. Herning followed Feng's finger and saw a slight, slender figure, crowned by a glorious mane of flame-red hair, walking slowly among the dead plants of what was the king's garden in the spring and summer. The figure was swathed in a thick woolen cloak richly embroidered at neck and hem, and moved with quiet grace and dignity.

"My lord?" Herning asked, confused. "It's Queen Gerutha."

Feng expelled a sigh, his breath a visible cloud in the chill. "Aye," he said. "Queen Gerutha."

Herning looked sharply at Feng, his eyes narrowing. He would have had to be a fool to miss the naked longing in Feng's tone, the way his voice caressed the queen's name, and Herning was no fool. _Is that your game, my lord?_ he wondered. _Is it for love of the queen that you keep away from your brother, that you drag us all to the battlements when the king reads in his library?_ He looked back at the queen. Gerutha was Norwegian, a princess of unearthly beauty and nobility, given to King Horwethil as a dynastic bride – but Horwethil had been a young man then, and Gerutha his age, and love had quickly blossomed between the powerful king of Denmark and the ethereal Norwegian princess. Herning could well imagine Feng's despair if he loved Gerutha.

Then Feng turned abruptly away from the battlements, his cloak whipping around him with the sudden movement. "My lord?" Herning asked as Feng strode silently back into the castle, not giving so much as a backward glance to his retinue of noblemen. Groaning and wishing his headache at least would leave him alone, Herning pulled his own cloak around him and followed the prince. He could hear Feng's retinue follow him. Herning smiled in satisfaction, for he thought he could guess Feng's game. He was going to confront Gerutha while she was alone, make her try to deceive the king._ Aye, you play your hand, my lord,_ thought Herning, _and I will counter it with mine, and with your retinue as my witnesses. Lay a hand on the queen without her consent, and I will protect her with my life._

But to Herning's confusion, it was not the door outside that Feng made for. Rather, it was the corridor that wound deeper within the castle, that would take Feng to the very heart of the keep. _Not Gerutha?_ Herning thought. _Who, then?_

Feng gave no sign that he knew that his train of men were following him. He simply strode ahead. Behind him, Herning saw Feng's hand stray to his sword hilt, belted at his side, and he felt unconsciously for his own blade. _What is he doing? Where is he going?_

Herning realized what was happening when Feng reached the door of Horwethil's library. _Oh, Lord,_ Herning thought, _please, Lord, no, don't make him that foolhardy!_

Feng pushed open the door, his hands open and empty at his sides. Horwethil looked up from the book he had been reading. "Feng," he said, and shut the book. From where he was, hurrying down the hall after Feng, Herning could see that the leather cover was beautifully embossed with gold leaf and chips of jewels. He could also see that Horwethil was on uneven ground, unsure how to behave before his recently estranged brother. Herning broke into a run, his feet pounding on the stones of the floor, desperately hoping that he had read Feng entirely wrong.

He had not. Horwethil was still unsure, still confused, when Feng reached down to his belt and ripped a small sharp dagger free of its sheath. Herning, almost at the library, saw the gleam of the blade and shouted – a warning, a cry of despair, a shriek of failure, he never knew – and flung himself at the door. Horwethil, a soldier despite his crown, reached to grab his own dagger out of its sheath at his waist. Feng, his thin face contorted with hatred and jealousy, stepped up close to his brother and buried his dagger up to the hilt in Horwethil's chest.

Horwethil made a sound, a choked, blood-thickened noise that would come back to haunt Herning's dreams all the rest of his life. Herning reached the library at last, too late, and clung to the door with shaking fingers. With horror in his eyes he watched his sovereign fall. Horwethil made a last, heartbreakingly brave attempt to avenge himself, tearing free his own dagger and trying to stab his brother. His face white and pinched with triumph, Feng coldly plucked the dagger from his brother's dying hand and turned it against its master, stabbing it too up to the hilt in the throat of the king. Herning choked on his own fear and disgust. Horwethil crumbled, falling to lie a supplicant at the feet of his brother. He jerked a few times, as if he was having a seizure, and then lay stiller than any man should lie.

Only then did Feng look up. His eyes were lit with a cold fire that Herning knew could and would consume him and his family if he stood against it. He thought of Margret, his wife, who hated and feared Feng only a little less than she did the Devil. He thought of his daughter, Olwa, who was all of three years old. He looked at Horwethil, stained with blood too red to look real. He looked at Feng, whose hands were as red as his brother's throat.

"Lord Herning," said Feng. It was a challenge, Herning knew that. He answered it in the only way he could.

He bowed his head. Bile rose to choke him, and he could not tear his eyes away from his freshly-killed king, but Margret's and Olwa's faces swam in his mind, twisted in a rictus of death identical to Horwethil's, and he could not bear the thought. He thought he could find it in him, somewhere, somehow, for their sakes, to bear the murderer Feng as king.

"Good," said Feng. Herning looked up. Feng's retinue had arrived. No fools they – they took in the grisly sight of Horwethil with two daggers in him, Feng's red hands, the scent of blood, the cold iron in Feng's eyes, and bowed. Herning longed to spit at the sight, but held back the impulse. He himself had done the same, to survive.

Feng reached down and tore a strip of cloth from Horwethil's tunic. Disdainfully he wiped his bloody hands on it and tossed it aside. "Someone must inform the queen of her husband's death," he said. "She will rejoice, be assured – my brother the late king has abused her for the past year." His eyes roamed the assortment of noblemen and lit upon Herning. "Lord Herning," he said, "I confer this honor upon you."

Herning bowed. The stench of blood filled his nostrils, and he nearly gagged. "My lord, I thank you," he said, and left.

He did not think, kept his mind carefully blank of images as he went at almost a run to the garden. He was grateful for the protection of his cloak when he went outside again. From far off he could see Gerutha – her red hair made her an easy beacon. Out of nowhere he remembered that that very morning, Horwethil had taken breakfast with the court and had tugged Gerutha's hair playfully. The tears that might have risen to his eyes froze at the cold of the day. He forced his mind blank again and made his way over the frozen ground to bow before the queen.

"Rise, Lord Herning," she said, smiling. The wind had colored her cheeks so that her whole face was like a rose in full bloom. "What news do you bring me?"

Herning straightened and found he could barely look Gerutha in the face. "The worst, my queen," he said softly. "Your husband is dead."

Gerutha stared at him in disbelief. "You lie," she said, the roses fading from her face. "He was hale as ever this morning."

"He was," Herning agreed, feeling his throat seize up. He must choose his words with care if his family was not to suffer from Horwethil's murder. "A most foul deed has torn him from Denmark and sent him to Heaven."

"I cannot believe you," Gerutha whispered, but her pale cheeks betrayed her. "It cannot be."

"It is," Herning confirmed. Gerutha turned eyes full of despairing, hopelessly disbelieving pain on him, and he broke under her beauty and her anguish and her fear. "My queen, it is true. Your husband's brother held the daggers that did it."

Gerutha screamed, a reflexive action that she stifled a moment later, clapping a hand over her own mouth and choking on her cry. The tears that had frozen in Herning's eyes burned hotter in Gerutha's – they spilled out and flooded her face. She wavered on her feet, and then sank in an eerie copy of Horwethil's death to the frozen earth.

Herning knelt beside her and took her small hands in his, chafing them and shaking her gently to bring her around. "Majesty!" he whispered urgently. "Majesty, wake up!" Eventually he saw her eyelids flutter, and she opened her eyes. "Oh, thank God!" Herning gasped.

She sat up carefully, pulling her dirt-stained cloak close around her. Her eyes were hollow. Herning could not help but think back to that morning – she had been so alive, so bright, so sparkling, that to see this pale, wan replica of her was heartbreaking. _Damn you, Feng,_ he thought angrily, _damn you and your anger and your jealousy to Hell!_ "What can I do?" Gerutha whispered. She sounded for all the world like Herning's own little Olwa, his beloved daughter, that his heart went out to her, and he put his arms around her and held her close.

"You must live," Herning whispered close to her ear, "so that when the time comes you can confront Feng with what he has done."

"I?" she asked bitterly. "I am a foreigner, and I am a woman. I will live, but there is nothing I can do to give him pause." She lay quiet in Herning's arms, but he could feel her slender body shake with suppressed sobs. Finally she gathered herself. "But there is one who can do something," she whispered. Suddenly Gerutha gripped Herning by the front of his tunic, her eyes desperate with hope. "Lord Herning, promise me. Go to my son. He is honor-bound to avenge his father's death. Swear to me that you will protect him."

"Whatever my protection is worth, he will have it," Herning answered, thinking bitterly of just how little his protection had meant to Horwethil.

"Thank you." Gerutha slumped again. "Now I can live." She made to stand, and Herning got to his feet and helped her up. She drew about her the nobility of a queen, wiping the tears from her face. Herning was stunned that he had forgotten that Gerutha was more than just a heartbroken woman. "Go to him now, Lord Herning," she said. "Go to Amleth."


	2. Prince Amleth

Madness In Great Ones

Chapter Two

It took Herning a while to find Prince Amleth. The heir to the throne, the prince bound by honor and tradition to one day avenge his father's murder, was all of seven years old, and was running happily through the castle. _I am not a nursemaid,_ Herning thought with some irritation after a good half-hour of running around, following the prince's trail. His headache was decidedly worse by now.

At last, and not a moment too soon for Herning, he found Amleth in the nursery. Herning suppressed a groan – he had started there, only to be told that Amleth was in the great hall. _If only I'd waited here,_ he thought, and cleared his throat.

Amleth, playing happily with two carved and painted wooden soldiers, looked up. Herning caught his breath – he had never noticed it before, had never had the prince's gaze trained directly on him, but Amleth would grow up to be the spitting image of his father. Herning could see it even through the baby fat. Horwethil's legacy was written in the set of Amleth's jaw, his firm grip on the soldiers, his piercing eyes that had stayed blue after infancy. It felt disconcertingly like looking at a seven-year-old Horwethil, and Herning consciously pushed the thought away and bowed. "Prince Amleth," he said.

Amleth frowned. "Should I know who you are?" he asked, a frown creasing his forehead.

"Not necessarily," Herning assured him. "I am Herning, lord of the city of Struer."

"Oh." Amleth smiled. "I'll remember you now."

"I am glad to hear it, my prince," Herning said, and meant it. "But you must come with me now. I have –" He stopped. _How do you tell a seven-year-old boy whose life is perfect that his world is coming crashing down on his head?_ Herning clutched for lifelines and fell back on court protocol and formalities. He knelt before Amleth. "My lord prince," he said, "the worst of things has happened. Your father, King Horwethil, is dead."

Like Gerutha, Amleth could not believe it. He stared with shock in his blue eyes at Herning, and then shook his head. "But – but he can't be dead," Amleth said, his words slow as his mind processed them. "He's the _king_. He can't just die!"

It was easier to tell Gerutha, outside under the sky where God could judge his actions, that Feng had murdered Horwethil than it was to say it within the castle. But it had to be done, somewhere. Amleth had to know his task. Herning rubbed his face wearily and held out his hand to the prince. "Come with me," he said softly, "and hurry."

Amleth's blue eyes narrowed with suspicion and fear, but he scooped his wooden soldiers into one hand and carefully laid his other hand into Herning's. "Where are we going?" he asked as Herning opened the door of the room and peered cautiously out into the hall. "Where are you taking me?"

"To my quarters," Herning replied, keeping his voice at a whisper. He felt Amleth's hand tense in his, and he added soothingly, "Your mother sent me, my lord prince. You can trust me."

"But you said my father –"

"Hush!" Herning put his finger against Amleth's lips to silence the prince, who might unwittingly say something he should not and betray them. Feng might have spies anywhere. _We have all misjudged Feng,_ Herning thought angrily, _and we will all pay the price of that._ He looked at Amleth, at the round face that had paled in chilling imitation of Gerutha when she learned of Horwethil's death, and wondered where the justice was in the fact that Amleth too, blameless and guileless, would pay the price along with the court.

Regardless of whether or not spies watched and marked Herning and Amleth's passage, they encountered no one on the way to Herning's quarters. With a sigh of profound relief, Herning opened the door and let them both in, shutting the door behind them and locking it. One of the servants approached and bobbed a curtsey, and Herning dismissed her with a brusque wave of his hand. Amleth made for the wall, his soldiers clutched in his hand and his eyes wide and frightened.

Herning thanked God when Margret came into the room. She was tall and just a little on the plump side, but to Herning's eye the certain tendency to roundness that her whole body had merely amplified the sweetness of her demeanor. She beamed at him and came quickly to embrace him, but Herning took her hands and nodded silently to where Amleth huddled against the wall.

"Oh, God," Margret breathed. "Herning – what's Prince Amleth doing here?"

Herning dropped a kiss on her forehead. "Love, our world has changed." He lowered his voice and beckoned Amleth closer. Pale with fear but pricked with curiosity, Amleth obeyed, stepping cautiously nearer to Herning and Margret. "The king has been murdered." He told them the story then, in full, with even more detail than he gave to Gerutha because of the horrified look in Amleth's face. For her part, Margret sank into a chair at the start, and when Herning finished the grim recital, she held out her arms to Amleth with tears in her eyes. The prince's lips quivered, and the knuckles of the hand holding the soldiers went white, and then he ran to Margret and clung to her, sobbing.

"What can we do?" Margret asked, stroking Amleth's hair soothingly. "Is there anything?"

"I spoke to the queen," Herning said dully. "She's barely clinging to life – there'll be no rallying around her. And who knows how long Feng's been planning this? It may seem impetuous and mad, but I believe he worked this out long ago. I think we are surrounded, and that there is nothing we ourselves can do." He looked at Amleth, or rather at Amleth's back. The prince seemed to have gotten himself under control. Herning feared setting him off again, but there was nothing else to do. "But you can do something, my lord prince."

Amleth looked up. "What?" he asked.

"You are bound by honor to avenge the death of your father," Herning reminded him.

"Herning, think! He's seven years old, he can hardly challenge Feng to a duel!"

"He's seven years old _now_," Herning pointed out. "But in ten years he will be seventeen, in fifteen he'll be twenty-two. And Feng is not the youngest of men now. He's twenty-eight – in fifteen years he'll be forty-three, and then Amleth has as good a chance as anyone of defeating him."

Margret's arms tightened protectively. "But Feng will be after him! He's not stupid, he knows what tradition demands! If Amleth lives to see seventeen it will be a miracle!" She was the one close to tears now, and Amleth the one regarding Herning with a mixture of fear and wild hope.

Amleth wriggled free of Margret and looked gravely up at Herning, who knelt to put his eyes on a level with the prince's. "Uncle Feng killed Father," he said slowly, his child's voice belying the gravity of his words. "And I must kill Uncle Feng, but Uncle Feng wants to kill me so that I don't kill him."

"Yes," Herning confirmed.

"Can't I talk to Uncle Feng and convince him not to kill me?" asked Amleth hopefully.

Herning smiled sadly. Oh, to be a child and to have it all be that simple! "No," he said. "He would not listen, and he'd kill you that much faster."

"Then I have to keep him from killing me," Amleth said, downcast at the failure of diplomacy. He looked back up at Herning. "How?"

Herning sighed. Here at last was a question that he could give a definite answer to, something that could be solid in Amleth's reeling world. "A ruse," he said, thinking aloud in meditative tones. "A trick. Something to mislead Feng, to not make him think about you so that he can't think of killing you."

"Something to gull him into believing Amleth's no threat," Margret added, picking up on her husband's train of thought.

"We could say you killed yourself," Herning suggested. "No, then there'd have to be a state funeral. Perhaps…a fit of hysteria, brought on by hearing of your father's death?"

"That's good," Amleth put in. "No one pays any attention to crazy people."

Herning's eyes were sparkling. "That's it! Amleth has gone mad! Hearing of his father's death made him so grief-stricken that he can't even utter a coherent sentence!"

"Can you do that, Amleth?" Margret asked, concern furrowing her brow even as her eyes leaped with the same excitement that was in Herning's gaze. "Pretend to be crazy for years?"

Amleth considered. "It wouldn't be easy," he said. "But would it keep me safe?"

"No one pays attention to crazy people," said Herning, repeating Amleth's words back to him. "Yes, Amleth, I think you'd be quite safe."

"Then I'll do it," Amleth said simply. Herning noticed that he no longer clutched his soldiers, that he had left them in Margret's lap, and smiled to himself.

"Wait! What about Gerutha?" Margret asked. "Should she know?"

"I can tell her somehow," Herning said, "and she could help foster the belief that Amleth's mad. She might even let him foster with us, and that would be ideal." He was touched when, as he spoke of Amleth fostering with him and Margret, the prince's eyes lit up hopefully. "I should take you back to the nursery, Amleth," Herning said reluctantly, "if we have this all figured out."

Amleth nodded. He retrieved his soldiers from Margret's lap, and Herning took his hand and led him back to the nursery. "How does a crazy person behave?" Amleth whispered when they had made it back.

Herning scratched his head. "Just – be odd. Do strange things. Here!" He hurried to the fire pit, still holding Amleth by the hand. The fire was long dead, but Herning reached in and grabbed a handful of ashes, smearing them on his prince's face and tunic. Kneeling in front of Amleth, he gripped the tunic between his hands and tore it at some of the seams, and mussed Amleth's brown hair with his hands still covered in ashes. "There," he said with satisfaction, surveying his handiwork. "Make messes. Throw things and scream. Say things that make no sense. Make up nonsense languages. Walk around wide-eyed. Just do things that make people unsure of you, and they'll do their best to forget you exist." Herning kissed Amleth on the forehead, much as he might have kissed his daughter Olwa when she was afraid, to boost her courage, and stood up. "Be brave, sweet prince," he whispered.

The face that looked back at him from under the thick coating of ashes was determined and resolute. "I will," Amleth promised.

Herning left him there, wondering how he was going to get access to Gerutha to tell her about her son's chances of survival.


	3. Wooden Flowers

Madness In Great Ones

Chapter Three

"What are you doing?"

Startled, Amleth looked up from where he sat by the fire. He put the vacant expression on his face as a matter of habit. After three years of acting mad, it was almost second nature to him. It frightened him when he made himself think about it.

He wondered if he should take off the pretense. He had never seen this girl before, and she was very young – _But youth doesn't mean she's stupid,_ he reminded himself. _I'm still young, and look at me!_ "Good day to you, fair lady," he said in the singsong voice that he'd perfected in three years of playing insane.

The girl giggled and skipped over to him. She was bright-eyed and pretty, her features elfin and delicate. When she smiled, Amleth could see that she'd just lost a tooth, probably her first. "I'm not a lady," she corrected cheerfully, "I'm Olwa!"

_Olwa_… The name rang a bell somewhere in Amleth's head, and not a warning bell either. Perhaps the daughter of one of his mother's ladies…

"Papa said you were by yourself, so I came to keep you company!" she went on.

Amleth grasped at the straw she offered him. "And who is your father? What does he do to make a living, or does he make no living at all?"

His odd words would have made any other member of the court look away from him and pretend they hadn't heard. Olwa sat down, legs crossed, and answered promptly, "His name is Herning, and my mama is Margret."

Amleth had rarely known such relief in his life. That was where he remembered the name from! Olwa was Herning's daughter. That made his life much easier at the moment. He need no longer put on the show of madness, not for Herning's kin. _Careful, Amleth,_ warned a voice in his head. _Don't relax too much. Walls have ears, and ears belong to Feng._

"So what are you doing?" Olwa asked again, peering with interest at the piece of wood in Amleth's hand.

"That's not very polite," Amleth said, smiling to let her know he was teasing. "You should ask my name first." He kept his voice down, just in case.

"Oh. Well, what's your name?"

"My name is Amleth," he told her, "and I am whittling." He picked up the knife on the floor and showed her how he chipped away little bits of the wood to make a shape. "You see this? It's going to become a wooden hook when I'm done with it."

Olwa picked it out of his hand unceremoniously and examined it. "It looks more like a flower," she said, handing it back.

"A flower?" Amleth hooted. He looked at the piece of wood again. "I think it looks like a hook."

"Well, _I _think it looks like a flower!" said Olwa. Amleth looked at her, ready to snap something rude – and then stopped when he saw the sparkle in her eyes. He had to take a moment to process her reaction. Olwa, it seemed, was not like any of his mother's ladies. He had gotten to know them very well through observing them, and they were either argumentative or whiny – Feng's choices, all of them. None of them took pleasure in anything as far as he could see; all were equally dry and irritating. But if their conversation was any clue to her disposition, Olwa knew how to enjoy herself. She said what was on her mind, but she didn't mean harm by it.

Amleth smiled.

"Then a flower it shall be," he said suddenly, "and you must help me make it." She squealed with delight and scooted closer to him. "Now, since I can't see this flower, you'll have to tell me where it is. Where's the stem?"

"Right there, silly," she teased, touching the end that he'd been carving into the curve of the hook. From one end of that, the wood blossomed into a square block, quite large enough to carve petals out of.

"Oh, I see it now," he said. "What kind of flower is it?"

Olwa considered. "A daisy!"

Amleth thanked his lucky stars that she hadn't said a rose. He thought he could just barely manage a daisy. "All right." He started to work on it. "Now, you'll have to talk to me, so that I don't get bored."

"Can I tell you a story?"

"Please!"

Olwa leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince…"

_Don't all stories begin that way?_ Amleth thought, amused, his knife busily at work. _Once upon a time there was a handsome prince_…_no, a king, who was murdered by his jealous brother for his crown and his wife_…

He frowned, his amusement gone. It had been three years. He was ten now, with many years to go before he could even make a reasonable attempt to avenge his father's death, and he did not like waiting. He liked even less his mandatory appearances for court feasts. He was probably not the only one – Amleth would lay money that most of the court would have liked to keep the mad prince out of their sight – but Feng had had no child by Gerutha in three years, so Amleth was still the sole heir to the throne. _That must rankle Feng in the small hours of the night,_ Amleth thought._ That his ambition will be lost when the son of his brother ascends the throne_…

But that only made his situation more precarious. If Feng decided that the royal line wasn't worth the sacrifice of losing his hard-won job to Amleth, the prince very much suspected that he would not live much longer. It lent a desperate edge of reality to his game of madness, which was becoming less and less a game with the passing years.

"Amleth?" He felt a hesitant tug on his sleeve and jumped. He had forgotten all about Olwa, and he flushed in chagrin. "You weren't listening," she said softly, the hurt she felt plain in her voice.

Maybe this was the answer. Maybe Olwa, cheerful, bright Olwa, could be his savior from madness. Maybe she could be the line he could cling to, to connect him with sanity. Hope flooded through Amleth, hope and genuine regret that he'd hurt her.

"I'm sorry, Olwa." He held up the block of wood. "See how well it's coming?" She nodded. "Please keep going. I promise I'll listen from now on."

She smiled shyly. "Once upon a time there was a handsome prince…"

Feng whirled on Polsgrunn with shock and, the councilor was startled to see, fear in his eyes. "What did you say?" he demanded.

Polsgrunn repeated his message, gathered from the various spies he'd set around the castle. "Apparently Prince Amleth was lucid today, for some amount of time. Rosen said that he talked for a while with Herning's daughter."

The king began to pace. Polsgrunn watched him with growing apprehension. He had thrown in his lot with Feng shortly after the murder, and he had no desire to lose everything now. "Damn him," he heard Feng mutter. "Damn him." Polsgrunn couldn't tell whether Feng was talking about Amleth or Horwethil. Maybe both.

"There is still hope that Queen Gerutha will conceive," Polsgrunn reminded Feng.

"Oh, aye, plenty of hope," snarled Feng. "So much hope that she all but refuses me her bed except for a few times a month! I think she plans it so that she will never conceive. Aye, Polsgrunn, there is an abundance of hope that the fair Gerutha will bear me a son."

"You are her husband!" Polsgrunn countered. "You do not need her permission to lie with her."

Feng rubbed his face with both hands. "It makes it more difficult," he confessed.

Polsgrunn sighed. Feng was in love with the queen, and she could not forgive him for the murder of her first husband, and it was all very, very bad for him if things continued as they did. "Shall I keep spies on Amleth?" he ventured to ask, tactfully changing the subject.

"Yes," said Feng heavily. "Yes. Many spies. And constantly."

Polsgrunn knew when his king wanted him to leave. This was one of those times. He bowed and withdrew, heading off to speak to the spy Rosen about his new duties.

_Author's Note: Okay, so obviously Olwa is Ophelia, and Polsgrunn is Polonius. I'm basing this fic off the actual happenings, but I couldn't resist throwing in some elements from the play!_


End file.
